Women at a Banquet

Nina de Garis Davies

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This detail of a banquet scene shows a female guest offering another guest a yellow mandrake fruit, which the ancient Egyptians associated with love and sexuality. The fruit has a pleasing smell when ripe, while the mandrake plant itself has hallucinogenic and aphrodisiac effects but is toxic. Several lotus flowers are also depicted. Each headband features a lotus bud, and two guests hold a lotus flower; one is open (though partially destroyed), and another is closed. The lotus flower, which also has a pleasing scent, was a symbol for regeneration and rebirth because its petals open and close every day. Additionally, the Nymphaea species of lotus has narcotic properties and may have been used to achieve an altered state.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.

Metropolitan Museum of Art